


Five for Iron

by WilliamRaineyHarlaw



Series: The Habits of Magpies [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Airships, Backstory, Bigotry & Prejudice, Crime Fighting, Double Agents, Gen, Mercenaries, Mildly Military, Politics, Prequel, Worldbuilding, gray and grey morality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-08-11 18:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7902955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamRaineyHarlaw/pseuds/WilliamRaineyHarlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remnant has giant airships and vast expanses of lawlessness.  You'd better believe it has sky pirates.  (Set five years before canon; no spoilers for "Seven" or "Six.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**LISITSA**

"The search team is back from Magdin,” said Jin.

I looked up from watching two of the crew repair a leak in the envelope, fixed my eyes on his, and willed him to elaborate without my having to ask for once. The wind whipped his hair back as he approached the railing, his spear over his shoulder. It glinted weakly for a moment, as we passed through a thin patch in the clouds.

Apparently today wasn’t the day he started giving straight answers. “Any casualties?”

“None. A few minor injuries and depleted Auras, though—there were a hell of a lot of Grimm still prowling around.”

“Any survivors?”

“None that they found. There were signs that a few people broke out and fled, but apparently they didn’t get far. They did find horses in the town, all either crippled or headless—wouldn’t have done them any good.”

I sighed. “Did Murrey manage to gather any hard information, or did they have to spend the whole time fighting off Grimm?”

“Plenty of photos, and some evidence that the attack took place on the ninth of last month. Things like calendars and business ledgers stopped then.” He hesitated. “The…condition of the corpses more or less lined up with that date, too. So they buried what they could find, and cached some personal effects in one of the less damaged buildings, in case any surviving relatives turn up.”

“Good.” One last thing occurred to me. “Is there any question about how it happened?”

“No, it was clearly Grimm. Most of the bodies were in too bad a shape to say for sure how they’d died, but there were a few…” He trailed off and shook his head. “No boot prints, shell casings, or other signs of living attackers. There were bullet holes here and there, but they had all been made by the defenders firing outward. Murrey was adamant about how thoroughly her team had gone over the place, and everything they found pointed to Grimm.”

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Magdin had done a good job of defending itself for over a year, throwing off four good-sized attacks that I knew of…but this one had been more than they could handle.

They should have taken us up on our offer. Being proven right held no satisfaction for me when it meant that so many people were dead.

Over the wind, I caught the faint calls of gulls from the coast.

Jin planted his spear quietly on the deck, and waved to get my attention. “Weld has some good news, though: we’ve heard back from Velay’s town circle. The rumors about the White Fang’s new leadership have finally reached them, and they’re getting scared. They want to negotiate a new contract, for a permanent contingent of one or two squads.”

I whistled. We could probably afford that, unless an all-out war erupted between the kingdoms and threatened every single one of our other clients, but it was going to cost them. “Why would Velay be worried about the Fang? I thought they were eighty percent Faunus.”

“Eighty-three. Some Velaysians did go off to join them a few years back, but if their message is to be believed, anyone still in the town who agrees with the direction the Fang is taking now is being damn quiet about it. They’ve sent ‘recruiters’ into the area, and the circle wants someone watching their backs if things get heated.”

“‘It’s a nice town you got here,’” I said in a nasal voice, adjusting my hat meaningfully. “‘Be a shame if someone were to picket in front of it.’”

“Or firebomb it,” said Jin, either ignoring the sarcasm or failing to notice it. Even after three years of marriage, I couldn’t always tell. “Or sneak into it on a cloudy night and cut the throats of a few public figures while they slept.”

I grimaced. “Strange, to think about them going to those kinds of extremes.”

“It is. I suppose the kingdoms mostly have themselves to thank, for not taking them seriously before.” He peered over the railing, through the mist to the peatlands below. “But if it feeds the crew, I guess their loss is our gain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Called it! https://youtu.be/AvTyOBZlvEk?t=1m27s


	2. Keine exakte Wissenschaft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another day in the life of a Specialist.

**WINTER SCHNEE**

Mikol Zimnyak was dead.

I kept reading the same few lines of Tsagaan’s report, but not a word of it was coming through. All I could think of was the day Mikol had accompanied my father to one of my fencing school’s exhibitions. Ostensibly, they were meeting to discuss Company affairs in a fresh—and non-surveilled—setting, but I don’t recall that they actually talked very much. I had just turned twelve.

My father had saved his criticism for later that evening. Mikol had waited, but only until our bodyguards came to distract Father with a security update, to share some thoughts of his own. A smile had creased his face behind his close-trimmed beard, and he’d whispered, as if sharing a secret, “The fates gave us emotions for good reason, Miss Schnee. Don’t be afraid to use them, because they will happily use you.” I hadn’t been in the mood for _yet more_ advice at the time, but it had flashed through my mind again during a lesson a month later, and I’d kicked my instructor halfway across the hall. That had been the beginning of the end of one of the “plateau periods” in my training, and the principle behind it had become one of the key threads in my fighting style as it matured.

I cleared a space in front of me, until I was facing one blank sheet of notepaper on the bare glass of the desktop. Setting down my own thoughts on Tsagaan’s work would increase my chances of retaining the information, and force me to keep track of my progress through her report. I’d need to lock away my notes (or destroy them) when I was finished, but writing them on a hard surface would avoid creating any impressions that might be discovered later.

_Initial recruitmt. at disused commercial prop. on Altstadt St., 5th night of Sickle Month. Ownership by Baltys-Ilgis Corp. appears legitimate; company repr. Mamikbash has confirmed that property briefly stood empty from 3rd to 8th of month, w/ no security incidents. Obtain employee roster; identify Faunus empls. who worked at this location shortly before Si/3rd. Identify sec. firm contracted for this prop.; obtain empl. roster._

I wasn’t looking forward to browbeating Mamikbash into giving me access to his employer’s records: he was willing enough to help the investigation, but he seemed…conceited. I’d need to put on the Schnee Mask and put the fear of the dark into him, to put a stop to his nascent efforts to “charm” me, and to dissuade him from boasting in the pubs about his encounter with a real, live Specialist.

_Obtain energy-usage record for Altstadt property during Sickle Month as soon as avail.; compare to previous year’s. If poss., identify human empls. sympathetic to Faunus-rights cause._

The energy record would most likely provide little or no useful information, but determining whether the Fang had used the building’s own systems to heat and light it during the meeting could indicate how familiar they were with the site, or with Baltys-Ilgis facilities in general. Presumably, the attendees could have conducted their business in the dark if necessary, but Tsagaan confirmed that the main room in which the meeting took place had been lit. Perhaps that hinted at a degree of complacency about attracting attention, or about being infiltrated by humans.

_(Do people of mixed herit. share Faunus vis. acuity? What pct. of Fang membership do they repr.?)_ I put these points in brackets, to indicate their secondary importance.

Tsagaan had also mentioned a stark divide between the recruiters and the new arrivals at this…event. The former had stood at the doorways and at intervals along the walls, herding the latter into the center of the room with silence and significant stares from behind their masks. Three of them—two men and a woman—circled around the knot of recruits, firing off questions. (“You, in the green dress and sash—why are you here?” “You with the hat and goggles—ever tasted tear gas? How about you, sunshine?” “There was a ruling that just came out of Mantle, involving publication of court proceedings for cases affecting the ‘public integrity of the kingdom.’ The first person to tell me what that ruling said can walk out of here wearing a mask— **Put that scroll away or it’s mine!”** “You look like a sharp kid—what are the three essential ingredients for sustaining a fire? And don’t say ‘Dust;’ we don’t have enough that we can waste it like that.”)

This last claim was certainly intriguing, although even if it was true, it didn’t come as much of a surprise. _Limited Dust supply may be conf.; continue investig. of thefts and inventory errors, but consider altern. means of transport, energy sources, comm. methods. Theft/loss of non-Dust-reliant materials/equip. may be more signif. or obv. (Also consider poss. of educators, athl. coaches among Fang memb.)_

Over the course of the meeting, several recruits (Tsagaan estimated seven or eight) had been led out of the room by existing members. Several had answered questions with a steady eye and voice, although apparently not with so much confidence that they seemed insubordinate. Others had never said a word after entering the building, but the recruiters must have seen something in their body language that suggested competence or trustworthiness. None of them had given her their names, of course, but she provided reasonably detailed descriptions for five of them—descriptions not limited to what they’d been wearing. Once I got through her report, I’d type up the appropriate forms and pass them to the public-surveillance office.

I wished I could include credit where it was due when I did so, but even assuming Tsagaan lived through this assignment, publicly acknowledging her contributions might not be wise. At least it wouldn’t occasion any comment when I peremptorily sent her descriptions to the surveillance office with no additional comments, but with the implied addendum “I’m _sure_ I don’t need to tell you what to do with this.” It would be entirely in keeping with the expectations I’d worked under since I enlisted. And for a Schnee, expectations mattered all too much…

“—understand that, sir, but the specific provisions I’ve identified provide absolutely no benefit to the Company. They serve only to humiliate Ilex, and as a matter of fact they’ll decrease the value of certain of its assets, at exactly the moment when we’ll be taking possession of them. Furthermore, they’ll produce resentment in its employees; those of them who remain with us will have even more trouble integrating into our workforce than I’d have otherwise expected.”

“That doesn’t matter, Hawk.” Looking back, I knew that my father’s use of the nickname had been calculated. It had emphasized that—for the moment—they were speaking as friends, but suggested that that could change if Zimnyak didn’t watch his words. “What matters is this: we made them an offer a year ago—quite a generous one, as you’ll recall—and they spat in our faces. We’ll receive plenty of criticism for our handling of this acquisition, but we’ve withstood worse, and frankly I don’t expect it to affect our customers’ behavior significantly. You might also consider this: when the next acquisition comes—most likely AFT Traders—their executives will remember Ilex’s experiences, and they’ll know what their options are…”

As Company board members went, Mikol had been quite decent—and he’d been more willing than most to stand up to my father. He hadn’t done it often, though, nor without reason, which was why I’d been surprised when he’d openly congratulated me upon completion of my training with the Specialists. Father hadn’t been pleased, but apparently, he had grudgingly acknowledged that doing so behind his back would have been just as insulting, and far more suspicious.

By that point, _Victor_ Zimnyak and I had long since agreed that we had no business marrying each other—or, perhaps, marrying at all. (Even if he and people like him had been legally protected since before either of us could walk, they still weren’t fully accepted in most of the kingdom’s industrial dynasties—another reason I preferred the culture of the military.) If it hadn’t been for that, I’d have suspected his father had had ulterior motives for contacting me again, but no matter how closely I’d parsed his message, there had been no hint of any sentiment other than pride and near-familial affection. ‘Quite decent’ didn’t suffice: by Company standards, he’d been a saint.

Still, he’d broadly shared the rest of the board’s attitudes toward the Faunus issue; that had been all the White Fang cared about. It had been foolish of them to choose him, though. I assumed it had mainly been a question of who made the easiest target, but they couldn’t have chosen a better martyr for the human-pride crowd to rally around.

Then again, perhaps they were _hoping_ for a backlash against Faunus civilians, to make recruitment easier. That could certainly benefit Tsagaan, and the three other agents we were attempting to place.

I shook myself and bent over the report again. If our people were to gain the White Fang’s trust, or even survive the attempt, they still needed help in looking properly disreputable. Our support team had already adjusted the agents’ bank histories to make their pay deposits appear lower and more irregular, in line with the hand-to-mouth lifestyle of the typical recruit, and I’d personally drawn up false arrest records for two of them. Making the changes in person had been a risk I’d weighed carefully: a Specialist taking an interest in the histories of two otherwise unremarkable citizens might elicit curiosity among the records office’s employees, but the fact that we were exempt from sign-in requirements and other paperwork would ensure that there was no substantial trail of evidence pointing toward the false records.

Even so, the field agents were having mixed success. Tsagaan seemed to be making some decent inroads—it was probably a matter of weeks before she was challenged to do something heinous to prove her loyalty—and Kikalis’s most recent message had been encouraging as well, but Lev and Churiurdin weren’t having as easy a time. I wondered if Faunus held prejudices about each other, based on the species from which they borrowed their features. _Are lions considered self-centered/arrogant? Are bears considered unpredictable? Research; consider findings (if any) when selecting agts. in future._

I wondered, too, if Kikalis and Lev’s records—however carefully we’d embellished them—were still too clean-cut, or suspicious in other ways.

Kikalis had been convicted of malicious damage (Class C), unlicensed possession and use of hazardous equipment, and acting as an accessory to a raft of hypothetical offenses—ostensibly convicted, that is—for destroying the external locks and security system of an apartment complex after one too many rejected rental applications. (In reality, he had been undergoing basic training during the period in question, but none of us were expecting any of his comrades in the Fang to have crossed paths with him there.) Casting him as technically competent and inclined to hold grudges had probably been a good decision; combined with his quite genuine knowledge of subversive political literature, it seemed a wonder he wasn’t already leading a local cell.

Come to think of it, there was still a possibility that someone in the White Fang would ask themselves that precise question sometime soon…followed by closely related but more specific questions for the eager new recruit. _Confirm that K. is prepared for more intensive scrutiny re crim. hist. (Recall that he does have approp. experience w/ cutting torches, circuitry, etc.—it may be tested.)_

Kikalis’ history could elicit either enthusiasm or suspicion, depending on the observer, but Lev’s was ambiguous in other ways. She had worked for a contractor to the Dust Company in the past, and it was relatively easy to weave in an account of her being jailed for falsely reporting equipment as “depreciated” and selling it to their competitors. I left hints that she had taken the fall for a supervisor (human, of course), thus explaining why she wasn’t still in prison, but giving her a grievance with the Company to complement her inside knowledge of the Dust industry.

So far, so good.

However, I knew for a fact that the Company generally responded to requests for information—even from its own employees—as if they were maternal insults, and its refusal to either confirm or deny such a story about a former contractor would make the portions of Lev’s account that were actually true difficult to corroborate. That would leave the question of whether to believe her up to the White Fang alone, and I saw several possible answers. If they took the arrest at face value, they would need to weigh Lev’s technical knowledge and history of enmity toward the Company against her aptitude for financial malfeasance, and the potential temptation to misuse their own assets in the future. Otherwise, they might follow our hints that she’d been wrongfully accused, and eventually welcome her with open arms (I hoped); or they might make their decision based on a different rationale entirely.

I set Tsagaan’s report down, stood and stretched, and slowly walked across the office. It wasn’t a significant distance—not in such a junior Specialist’s office—but sometimes I thought more clearly when my feet were moving.

Besides, lighting the lantern by the door would improve the room’s atmosphere somewhat. The sky had been heavy all day, and the evening had crept up while I was working; by now the dimness was becoming truly oppressive. The lantern wasn’t strictly necessary—although the fall storms would be coming soon, power failures in Atlas’ facilities were practically unknown—but I preferred it to the sterile overhead lights. It reminded me of the summer trips we’d made to the house on the lake to play at being pioneers, of excursions into the woods to harvest wild rice and mushrooms, and of ill-fated attempts to cook them ourselves. It reminded me of Mother.

Admittedly, Father usually hadn’t been able to join the rest of us there—and never for more than a day or so—but looking back, it seemed that he’d been happier then, too. He’d certainly left the Company’s problems back in Atlas during those visits. Even the rest of the year, while we were at home, he’d almost never brought them back from the office.

I hoped Weiss still remembered that side of him, although she’d been so young… _She still is._ I should probably ask her someday.

_I should probably ask her now._ There was no telling whether I’d need to go silent later on, in order to complete this assignment, but I had to be prepared to do so. Moreover, there was no assurance that fate would keep me any safer than it had Mikol. I might be in a more secure position than the field agents were, but unlike so many of my colleagues, I understood that security could only be viewed in relative terms. Father’s private war with the Fang had taught me that much, at least.

The frustrating thing was that, even if we removed Lev and Churiurdin from their assignments, they’d have to stay out of sight for the foreseeable future, to keep from raising any suspicion about the others. My commanding officer was getting nervous, and to be honest so was I, but as far as I was concerned, the potential good that Kikalis and Tsagaan alone could do far outweighed our misgivings.

Although they couldn’t control the final outcome of the tests they were passing through, I had faith in their dedication and loyalty. They weren’t like the frauds in the past, who had convinced Atlas investigators that they had key information about the Fang, and could obtain more—for a price. They’d all lost friends or loved ones in the struggle, one way or another: to attacks and reprisals, to the secrecy and mistrust the Fang’s actions engendered, to police sweeps and cycles of recidivism. Not all of them had said so in as many words, but I believed that what they wanted, more than anything, was an end to the division and hatred and wasted lives. Disabling the Fang was one necessary condition of that goal; remaking the Schnee Dust Company, and the dozens of smaller firms that looked to it for direction, was another. All of us knew that, but none of us knew how it would be accomplished at this point. I hoped it wasn’t too late.

I realized I’d been staring into the flame of the lantern for several minutes. I blinked and rubbed at my eyes, but the spot in my vision stayed where it was. Slowly, I circled back around my desk and tried to reorder my thoughts again. Once it faded, I sat back down and picked up my pen.

Those who hadn’t been recruited outright at the Baltys-Ilgis building, including Tsagaan, had been ushered out the door with instructions and a warning. The instructions had been straightforward: to meet at a park on Alarcao Street, at sunset on the 19th of the month, and await further instructions. The warning had been a bit more…evocative. (“If any of you want to walk away from this now, you still have that option. You may not get it again. If any of you decide to turn on us, now or later, simply know that you will regret it—and if you have a family, they’ll regret it too.”)

_Obtain Aura stimulants, antidotes to common tranquilizers; deliver by Faunus courier to Ts.’s cover address before Si/19th. Incr. protective details on parents’ and brother’s households; confirm that details are using heat- and Aura-sensing equip. at all hrs. Develop cost ests. for incr. security; remind Colonel of cost-sharing terms under which task force was formed. Consider additional sec. meas. for K., L., and Ch.’s rels., but prioritize Ts.’s for now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these characters will be important later, others won’t, but the notes Winter made in this chapter probably won’t be plot-crucial in the future. Probably.
> 
> Now watch, as Episode 2 completely derails my characterization of Daddy Schnee! Hell, with my luck Mrs. Schnee is still around too.
> 
> Edit: Had to fix the calendar.


	3. Only Solitary Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new challenger approaches.

**JACOB DAWES**

_“Lisitsa.” Legal name unknown. F, age approx. 35-40, height approx. 175 cm, race unknown. Semblance unknown. Skilled with firearms; name and specifications of personal weapon (if any) unknown._

_“Jin.” Legal name unknown. M, age est. 34, height approx. 190 cm, human. Semblance unknown. Carries spear/partisán/trident, fixed length of approx. 230 cm, name unknown._

_“Sumi.” Legal name unknown. F, age approx. 45-50, height unknown, magpie Faunus (unconfirmed). Semblance unknown, but believed to relate to navigation or piloting._

* * *

They called themselves the Sleepless Knights, and I assumed that one of their higher-ups was still giggling and patting herself on the back about that one. To go with the name, they’d apparently chosen a sigil in the shape of an eye, although to me it looked more like some kind of musical notation.

They were, in forked-tongue bureaucratic language, a “private security firm”—in the language of folks who actually had to work for a living, mercenaries. No shame in that line of work, especially to the thousands who lived outside the protection of the kingdoms, at the mercy of countless ravening monsters that wanted nothing more or less than the marrow from their bones. If someone with a sword in one hand and a gun in the other offered to stand between you and _that_ —for a price—what would you do? I mean, assuming you were halfway sane.

From the few (well, few dozen) blurry-ass photos the councils had on file, they did look like a competent group. Their uniforms were functional rather than flashy or intimidating, their vehicles and equipment were aging but well-kept, they behaved themselves when they came into the kingdoms for supplies... You get the idea. One thing about their appearance did stand out, though: apart from the eye symbol, there were no rank badges or other identifying marks to be seen. The profiles I’d been given listed them roughly in order of their apparent place in the firm, but without any hard evidence, that list had to be pretty speculative.

The other notes in the Knights’ file included a list of known contracts they’d taken in the past. I had been hoping I could pick out a compelling pattern from it, but there wasn’t much of one. They took jobs from anyone who could pay: freight haulers, scientists, crooks on the lam, settlements large and small. (I supposed their choice of clients didn’t really set them apart from the average Hunter.) They worked strictly outside of the kingdoms—at least, as far as we knew—but that probably had a bit more to do with political restrictions than any moral principle. The councils, and Atlas in particular, weren’t likely to look kindly on anyone trying to usurp their job of keeping order in the “civilized” areas of Remnant.

There were several cases in the past where they’d been hired to... _resolve_ labor disputes at industrial facilities out in the wilds—fewer of which were owned by the Dust Company than I’d expected. Whoever had written up their work history hadn’t included much detail on exactly how these conflict-resolution jobs had been carried out, but it was easy enough to guess. In recent years, they didn’t seem to be taking any similar ones, although there wasn’t any sign of them starting to stick up for the little guy either. Considering how the media had covered those incidents—particularly the mess at Hollow Hill—and the public backlash that had sometimes resulted, I wondered if the Knights had simply decided that getting involved caused more trouble than it was worth.

I took a sip of the cloudy liquor in my glass, then stared up into the changing trees, trying to savor my last day on Patch.

Once I set out, my sole responsibility would be to make myself their new best friend.

* * *

_“Weld.” Legal name unknown. Sex and age unknown, height approx. 155 cm, possibly human. Semblance unknown, but believed to relate to teleportation or image projection. Believed to lack experience with any weapons or fighting styles._

_Dan Fraser (confirmed legal name). M, age confirmed 32, height approx. 175 cm, lynx Faunus (Menagerie). Semblance unknown. Carries rifle (“Late Awakening”), possible secondary weapon. Minor criminal record on Menagerie (including sealed juvenile record), but no known ties to activist organizations._

* * *

“Activist.” No prizes for guessing who had chosen that wording. The White Fang, the Civic Reform Party, the Vox Tenebrarum, the Vacuan League, the folks preaching about the Broken Moon or the Tree of Life—all “activist organizations.” All equally honorable, if perhaps misguided—or equally insidious threats to life on Remnant, depending on who you asked. Ozpin and I knew it was a little more nuanced than that, but we generally kept that to ourselves. No point in telling the good people of Vale things they didn’t want to hear.

Odds were good that individually, some of the Knights did have ties to those groups in their past, but the only consistent motive I could find for the firm as a whole was survival—their own, and that of their clients. They seemed to consider politics, violence, and even money and Dust as only means to that end.

It was starting to sound kind of familiar.

The wind picked up, carrying a trace of woodsmoke from one of the neighbors, and I wondered—again—if it had been a bad idea to take my work outside today. Clear autumn days on Patch weren’t exactly rare, but they tended to be gorgeous, and I had felt like making the most of this one. This weather could take anything that wasn’t tied down, though, and send it into the sea. I returned the pages I wasn’t reading to the folder, laid it on the table next to me, and planted my glass and bottle on top to hold it closed.

* * *

_Francis Mariello (possible legal name). M, age approx. 40-45, height approx. 190 cm, wolf Faunus. Semblance unknown. Carries rifle and saber (separate, non-transforming)._

_Lydia Murrey (possible legal name). F, age est. 30, height approx. 170 cm, human. Semblance unknown. Carries rifle, possible secondary weapon._

* * *

Fine, upstanding citizens, no doubt about it—but if Oz and Jimmy’s briefings were to be believed, working for them would be easier on my conscience than one or two other groups I’d crossed paths with lately. They probably wouldn’t be completely free of the bravado and suspicion I’d seen from a few other legally-gray operations, so I was still expecting a “Prove you’re not working for The Man”-type test, but it shouldn’t be as bad as, say, the test devised by the Stone Suns.

Those bastards had demanded a freshly collected Faunus feature.

I’d gotten around it, by paying a quiet visit to a morgue in one of the rougher parts of Vale, and soon presented my “patron,” Neil Cochin, with a small flat box containing something packed in salt.

Ozpin had taken custody of the body and given it a decent send-off; I couldn’t take the risk of being seen with it. I’d traded sleep for drinks for a few nights in a row after that, but neither he nor I had seen a way around it. There needed to be someone inside the Suns to “represent the interests of the kingdom,” and trying to worm my way around their entrance exam would have (A) not worked and (B) aroused suspicion.

Neil had insisted on waiting a few weeks before recommending me for admission, to make sure I hadn’t done anything that might attract VNN or the police’s attention. He was a nasty piece of work, and militantly ignorant in ways that I had yet to fully appreciate, but he wasn’t completely stupid. After those few weeks passed without incident, he and the rest of his little...political think tank had agreed to “initiate” me. (The less said about that, the better.)

It was almost a shame. There were a few guys in the Suns—and it was overwhelmingly guys—who might have turned out all right if they hadn’t grown up steeped in the ideology, but I wasn’t in a position to pick and choose which ones to try and rehabilitate. I had a game to set up.

A few months after I was let in, there had been a Faunus-rights demonstration in Vale’s financial district. The Suns had received permission for a “counter-protest” on the far side of the plaza, with strict warnings not to cross Tien Huang Road.

After learning the schedule and figuring out who would be where, I’d had to work fast. The whole area’s security presence had been ramped up in the day or two leading up to the demonstrations…but they hadn’t given enough attention to the water and power lines running underneath the plaza.

The day’s events had gone off without a hitch, as far as both the Suns and the Faunus were concerned. A few people had taken beanbag rounds to the ribs, a little tear gas had been let off, and everyone got to go home (or to a holding cell) feeling like the good guys. It wasn’t until a few days later, when the Dust detectors had gone off at downtown Vale’s main water-quality gage, that the investigation and the eventual outrage had started.

* * *

_Victoria Carlton (confirmed legal name). F, age confirmed 25, height approx. 155 cm, human (Atlas). Semblance unknown. Carries polesaw, fixed length of approx. 245 cm (may incorporate firearm, but this is unconfirmed). Partial Huntress/military training; may have acquired additional training under one or more aliases._

_Mirabelle Plumm (possible legal name). F, age est. 43, height approx. 165 cm, human. Semblance unknown. Carries rifle and folding metal fan (separate, non-transforming)._

* * *

Making a bomb out of Dust, nails and blood thinner is fairly simple, although it’s dangerous as hell. Making one that looks functional, but isn’t—as if the bomber had gotten faulty instructions, or made one or two honest design mistakes—is a little harder. Making three bombs like that, and sneaking half a mile through storm drains to plant them as close to street level as possible without getting spotted, is a flat-out pain in the ass. I had just been lucky it wasn’t raining.

In the days and weeks after the bombs’ discovery, Vale’s police—with the help of a few Hunters who preferred a steady paycheck over a real challenge—had rounded up the Suns like escaped chickens. Neil had gotten himself killed resisting arrest (or possibly “resisting arrest”), along with some of the other complete bastards in the organization. A few of the younger ones were taken in for counseling; I felt a little guilty for not making that recommendation myself, but I had assumed it would be ignored.

Most of the rest had gotten short sentences for conspiracy and the like, unless they’d left evidence of other crimes lying around for Vale’s finest to stumble over. Their experiences behind bars weren’t likely to make them any less bigoted, but once they got released, they wouldn’t be able to trust each other anymore.

It was still a great big mystery who had turned everybody in after the bombs were discovered (or who’d planted the bombs in the first place), and although some of them probably suspected the new guy, the fact that “he” had also been “killed” resisting arrest meant they couldn’t be sure. Ozpin’s main concern was that they’d get into feuds with Faunus inmates, get more time added to their sentences, and we’d end up with a permanent human-supremacist contingent in our prisons. Unless that happened, though, the Stone Suns were finished as a credible threat to Vale.

At first, I hadn’t been happy to carry out a frame-up like that, even on guys like Neil who clearly had it coming. But watching the rest of my courageous comrades load themselves down with knives, prods, and snubnosed guns the morning of the demonstrations, several of them voicing fantasies that typically began with “I hope the mogs _do_ try something,” I’d realized that assuming I survived the day, I probably wouldn’t be losing much sleep over it.

* * *

_Bill Haiduk (confirmed legal name). M, age confirmed 29, height approx. 175 cm, marten/sable Faunus (Vacuo). Semblance unknown. Carries single hook sword with telescoping hilt (min. length 70 cm; max. length 180 cm). Graduated from Shade Academy, 68th year after Great War; competed in 33rd Vytal Tournament, eliminated during two-person rounds._

_Bryce “Red” Norland (confirmed legal name). M, age confirmed 57, height approx. 160 cm, human (Vale). Semblance unknown. Carries rifle; stock customized with retractable axe blade and “pheasant spur.” Possible combat experience in Faunus Rights uprising (records inconsistent). Widowed._

* * *

Infiltrating the Knights would, hopefully, be easier. It was no secret that they took new recruits on a regular basis, from just about any background—anyone who was handy in a fight, and not too much of a backstabbing jackal. I shouldn’t attract a whole lot of scrutiny as long as I behaved myself. It was a relief Oz had me aimed at our mutual enemies; bringing the Knights themselves down would have been a bit of a tall order. He hadn’t been all that specific as to precisely _who_ I was being aimed at, though, and I wondered if he knew for sure yet himself.

_What am I saying? Of course he bloody does._

The Fang was increasingly looking like an option, although I wasn’t sure what purpose would be served by working against them under the Knights’ banner specifically. And I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of leaving Patch for an extended time while the dust was still settling around their new leader.

Oz believed—or claimed to believe—that she had a good heart...but he had also admitted that that might only make her more dangerous. Either way, she was no fool: the speeches and statements she had made since stepping into the role had made her the media’s new favorite Faunus, but her people still weren’t afraid to bare their teeth if the humans pushed them. She had disavowed some of their...less proportional responses, and found scapegoats when she needed to—probably selecting them from her own rivals within the organization.

The Fang seemed to be ignoring Patch for now, but I still had to wonder how long it would be before that changed—and what would happen to Tai and the girls when it did. He hadn’t lost his touch while teaching at Signal, but considering what had happened after we lost Summer, I wasn’t sure how he’d respond to another real crisis—and he didn’t have the vicious streak that my sister and I shared.

I was pretty confident that they’d find a poor reception on Patch. I wasn’t sure if the locals would present a truly united front, in the face of the inevitable attempts to play humans and Faunus off against one another, but I was still holding out some hope. Most of the people we knew—whatever their species—tended to see themselves as islanders first, with their vocation or religion a distant second, and their physical identity far behind that. (Where the larger kingdom of Vale fit into that worldview usually depended on how the Council had been treating them lately, and whether there were any pants-wetting threats currently approaching the island.) But that didn’t rule out the possibility that large areas of Patch would be on fire by the time I got back.

Even when they had a point—which I had to admit was often—the Fang was looming larger on the horizon by the day. Still, my money was on the Dust Company. Ozpin and I and a few other people had been gathering evidence against some of its more... _enterprising_ employees, and against the bent officials who were protecting them. Typically, those employees supervised mines or transport systems outside the kingdoms proper, and had been using those facilities for their own purposes on the side. It looked like we were finally starting to build a decent case, but we’d found just about all the evidence there was to find within the boundaries of civilization. We needed to cast a wider net.

It stung like hell to be doing Jacques and Jimmy’s work for them, but it might be worth it if we could come up with any actual results to rub in their faces. Besides, by the sound of it, this assignment might give me a few months to kick back and pretend that I had a normal life, before the actual investigation picked up speed again.

The alarm on my scroll chimed. My ship was leaving for the mainland in two hours, and I needed to make one last walk-around before going to board it. I’d packed light—spare clothes, a carefully sealed metal canteen, a medical kit, some ammunition, and repair and cleaning equipment—but I had to make sure that the house was all locked up and the oven was shut off. (Not that I used it much, except when Tai and the girls were visiting.)

After I was reasonably sure that, if the house burned down while I was gone, it would be deliberate, I slung my sword over one shoulder, my pack over the other, and started down the trail to the port.

The charms of a fall day on Patch were probably affecting my mood more than they should, but I was almost looking forward to this assignment. I knew that Ozpin’s plan as it currently existed wasn’t going to survive too long after I met up with these people, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to care. If nothing else, I trusted in the edge on my sword and the strength of my arms.

I sent one last message to Taiyang: _I’ve got to turn my scroll off for a while. Don’t know how long. Tell Ruby and Yang I said hi._ It wasn’t the first time I’d had to tell him that—he’d know what it meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember those names. Except Neil Cochin, he’s even less likely to come back than Pyrrha is. And for the record, I did **not** intend for this chapter to be political, but the America I started writing it in was a different place from the America I finished it in, and I’ll be the first to admit that it reads a little differently now than it did then.


End file.
